Play to Remember
by SPDudley
Summary: Three years after the events of Evangelion, Shinji Ikari arrives in Germany to study at a prestigious music academy, hoping for a new start to his life. But can he really escape the past? S/A drama/romance.
1. Into the Storm

Shinji nervously looked out the windows of his aircraft as it descended through the darkening clouds on its approach. The sky seemed angry, with gray and black pillows covering his view while drops of rain trailed over the window as the plane descended.

"Pilot to cabin," the voice came on in English over the cabin speakers. "We're now on final approach. Please be sure you're all buckled in as the local weather is a bit choppy."

 _More like a torrent_ , Shinji thought to himself as he sat back and tried to relax in the seat. There was a flash out the window and he quickly turned his head, reflexively grabbing onto the two armrests as he searched for the source. A moment later a loud, muffled boom was heard but nothing else felt other than the high winds buffeting the airplane. _Just lightning_ , Shinji realized, and he tried to relax his grip on the arm rest. He looked down at his hands and realized he was grabbing the handles like they were actuators in the entry plug, and that brought a small smile to his face at how ridiculous it was. _I'm not piloting this airplane_ , he thought to himself, _I'm not piloting anything these days except maybe a cello._

Shinji laid back in his seat and tried to relax until the aircraft landed. At least the seat was comfortable: NERV, now strictly a research operation, had managed to hold onto a Gulfstream 650 while many of its vast assets were divided out to new owners or to disposal during the period after Evangelion operations officially ended, and still used it for transporting VIPs to and from places worldwide as needed. Shinji of course certainly qualified as a VIP to NERV even though his piloting days were long over. The interior of the small jet was nicely appointed with leather seats, a kitchenette well stocked with beverages and snacks, and even a small cabin in the rear where he had slept for most of the journey from Japan to Germany. There was an attractive Japanese woman in her early 20s as a cabin attendant and, as he was the sole passenger on the eight-seated aircraft, Shinji was well attended to during the flight. None of that however really helped him stop being apprehensive about the journey he was now taking or what would come when he reached his final destination.

The plane shook violently as it rushed downward for a few seconds and Shinji gripped the handles of his chair tighter, closing his eyes and praying that he wouldn't have survived at least fifteen Angels and nine Harpies just to end up smashed to bits on a runway in Germany. With a thud the aircraft made a hard landing on the runway and then shook nearly backwards as the pilot reversed the engines to bring it to a full stop. After another minute of settling down the G650 veered off the main runway and taxied down the tarmac, finally landed after a long journey.

Shinji opened his eyes and looked out the window, seeing darker skies and raindrops streaming down his window. A large sign in the distance stated in both German and English "Welcome to Leipzig Airport." He was able to relax a little, but then mentally started going through what would be happening next as this part of the journey, although somewhat traumatic, was simply just a step in the direction he was taking.

After another two minutes of rolling on tarmac the Gulfstream taxied into a large hanger where there were another four or five private planes parked inside. The aircraft came to a complete stop and Shinji took off his seatbelt without being asked to first, as he was anxious to get off the plane.

The cabin attendant handed Shinji his backpack and his coat with a smile, seemingly completely unfazed by the turbulent flight a few moments earlier. "Thank you for travelling with us, Ikari-sama " she said to him as she bowed respectfully, "it was a great pleasure having you on board."

"Thank you," Shinji replied and bowed slightly in return, "you were very hospitable."

The attendant smiled wider. "You're very welcome. Please enjoy your stay here."

Shinji put on his coat, then took his backpack and made for the exit, walking down a small metal stairway to the hanger floor below. Standing to receive him at the bottom was a European woman with brown hair tied in a bun that looked about thirty years of age, wearing a business suit and a very stern facial expression. " _Herr_ Kaji," she said to Shinji as he stepped off the stairs.

"Yes," Shinji answered.

"I have your travel documents here, we need a few minutes with immigration and I can get you on your way." Shinji smiled at her and replied back in German, "that would be good _._ "

The two of them walked briskly across the hanger floor and to a small office in the side wall of the hanger. There were signs above in several languages stating "Immigration Control" and a handful of uniformed staff members seated at two tables waiting patiently for the two of them to approach. Once at the first table the clerk seated there snapped to attention as the woman accompanying Shinji immediately thrusted several documents in front of him, including a green-colored passport and Shinji's NERV identification card. The two of them waited patiently as the clerk carefully studied all of the documents and then took a very good look at Shinji as he stood there.

Looking over both the passport photo and ID card, the clerk compared them to the young man standing in front of them and winced at the lack of similarity between the boy in the photos and the one he saw now. The boy in the pictures was short, slender, and somewhat scrawny albeit with a handsome face, and his dark brown hair was cut short. The one standing in front of him now was much taller, his brown hair now tied in a ponytail. The older boy wore wire-framed glasses as well and aside from the haze-purple eye color the two of them didn't look that much similar to the clerk.

"This photo," he pointed to the passport in his right hand, "you are somewhat different from when this was taken."

Shinji was a little embarrassed, as he had a growth spurt since his piloting days. "That was from nearly three years ago," he told the immigration clerk.

The clerk was just a little amused. "You've grown up a lot in that time, it seems." Shinji nodded. "You could say that."

The clerk then moved from the passport to the other documents and studied them, settling on the NERV ID card and making several checks between that and other papers. "Um, Mr…Kaji, did you change your name recently? Your organization identification has you named as ''Shinji Ikari.''"

Shinji nervously scratched the back of his head as he answered. "Oh, that. Well, it's a bit complicated but Kaji is the name of my legal family now. My original name was Ikari, and NERV still has me under that name. But everything else is under 'Kaji."

"I see," the clerk responded and started searching through the documents until he found what he needed. "Ah, yes. There's a certificate of Adoption here. That should be fine."

"Will my name here in Germany be Kaji?" Shinji asked the clerk somewhat nervously, "it's preferable that way."

"Well, you are registered under 'Shinjiro Kaji' at the school you will be attending and on your visa and other papers, so I shouldn't think that would be a problem." Shinji nodded in relief.

After another minute the clerk finally got out a red-colored stamp and proceeded to stamp a series of papers plus his passport. He then handed all of it back to Shinji. "Accepted. You have a 12-month student visa with unlimited travel privileges. Just remember that you must renew the visa outside of Germany once every year while you are studying here, otherwise you'll lose your immigration status."

"I understand."

"Very well. Welcome to Germany, Herr Kaji, and by the way you speak excellent German yourself. Did you learn in Japan?"

Shinji smiled, much broader this time. "I have a really good teacher."

After getting his paperwork back Shinji was accompanied by the woman outside the hanger to a covered patio where a black Mercedes SUV was waiting. Inside of the van were two large German men, people who Shinji didn't yet recognize but knew he would be getting to know them soon as part of his new security detail while he lived here. He asked the woman about his luggage and she motioned to the back of the van.

"Everything's there, sir. And please don't worry, I packed the cello case carefully."

"Thank you, _Fraulein_ " Shinji told her. "Then I'll be on my way."

"Thank you Herr Kaji, I hope you enjoy your time here." Shinji turned to go but the woman spoke something more, this time in Japanese, "Thank you also _Mr. Ikari_." He turned back to face her as she continued.

"I could understand why you wouldn't want anyone to know that you were the Third Child, sir, but just know from many of us you have our enduring and complete gratitude for everything that you did." Her stern face softened, her lips were in just a small smile that betrayed how actually nervous she was speaking to the boy who had saved the world. "If there is anything you need, anything at all, please call the number on my card. It's in with your travel paperwork."

Shinji smiled at her, wincing in embarrassment. "I'll do that. Thank you again very much."

The woman waived him off as he got inside the SUV. " _Auf Weidersein_!" she said with a wider smile.

* * *

The trip from Leipzig airport to the school Shinji would be attending was about an hour, most of which was spent in traffic on the autobahn as vehicles were snarled waiting for an accident to clear ahead of them. The rain had not abated since the flight, and if anything it had become worse. Shinji looked out the window and saw that the skies were even darker now. It matched his mood in some ways.

 _It's not like I don't want to be here, he thought to himself, but at the same time this is kind of far from home. Then again, home wasn't always Hakone, or Tokyo-3 for that matter._ He kept looking out the window and realized that he probably needed to call in about now. His phone beat him to it, ringing out the melody of Pacabel until he picked it out of his jacket pocket. "Misato-san?"

"Shinji! You made it!" Misato exclaimed, then said in a lower voice. "At least call me when you land. I was worried you'd have trouble with the weather there."

"Um, I'm alright," he replied back in a tired voice. "Although it's pretty gloomy out here still."

"Well, just keep dry. I confirmed that school is all ready and waiting for you. They've got your apartment set up too, and all your stuff should already be there. Sounds like it's a pretty nice place they've got you in." Just as she was about to continue Misato felt a tug at her leg and saw her son Akira standing there, a two year-old boy with black hair and black eyes, wearing a set of denim overalls and red shirt. Standing next to him was PenPen, who was dressed in an outfit that was identical to the toddlers except for the grey metal cooler backpack he wore. She picked up her son and held him in her arms.

"It's supposed to be pretty old but modernized," Shinji told her, "so at least I won't have to build fires in the fireplace to sleep at night."

Misato chuckled at Shinji's reply. "There, see. Not so bad being away from home. You're going to love living in Germany, trust me."

"From the world capital of beer…"

"Something like that," Misato said cheerfully.

"Good enough," Shinji continued, "and you're probably glad to have all of us out of the house by now."

Misato put down little Akira from the floor and sighed as she thought of that. Only a few months earlier their large house in Hakone was home to no less than four teenagers: Shinji and Rei, both of whom were adopted not long after the war with SEELE, and the Forrestal twins, the former pilots of Unit 04 who lived with them for about a year in the guest house. Not to mention Asuka also lived at the house for most of a year at the same time as the others. Add on little Akira on top of all of that and there were some days Misato considered that battling Angels at NERV would have been easier. But now the Forrestals and Rei had move onto America for school of their own, and Shinji was now in Germany where Asuka had returned months earlier. The large house seemed drearily silent to Misato. "I miss all of you, really. It's just too quiet here now without you."

"Maybe peace and quiet will do you some good," Shinji told her. "You've got another book coming right?"

"That's true, and at least now I can focus on it a bit more." Something caught Misato's eye below her and she immediately went into action. "Hey, Shinji, gotta go. Akira's getting into PenPen's food . Take care and call me soon, okay?"

"I will," Shinji replied, and then he started to say something else. Misato nearly hung up the phone in haste until she realized that Shinji was still on the line. "Shinji?"

"Um, yeah?"

Her voice became softer, more concerned. "Are you okay?"

"It's about Asuka," he told her. "I haven't heard anything back since I told her I was on my way here. I'm just worried, that's all."

"I wouldn't worry," comforted Misato. "You just got to let her find her way home, that's all. She always somehow makes it back." Shinji let himself feel just a little bit better after that. "I got it."

"Anyway, let me go clean up this mess. So bye bye for now!"

"See you later!"

"Oh, and Shinji?"

"Yes, Misato-san?"

"If you do run in to Asuka where you're living alone there," Misato said in a cute voice, "just be aware that I don't want to be a grandmother quite yet. Understand?"

"Um, got it!" he said nervously.

"Bye! Have fun!" Misato finally said and then hung up the phone.

Shinji held the phone in his hands as he looked out the window of the SUV as the thunderstorm continued outside. He could see that the vehicle had finally exited the freeway and was moving slowly through city streets, flowing slowly with city traffic as the day began. It wasn't Shinji's first time in Germany, by his count he had been here four times already including the current trip, but this time he would be a part of this place. Leipzig seemed like a mix of old and new, modern-looking offices were mixed in with older apartments and other buildings that looked like schools or some sort of government buildings, the latter appearing like palaces of old grey and green with marble columns and decorated trims and frames.

He looked at his phone again, working up the courage to try and text Asuka. It wasn't so much that he was afraid to contact her, but at times like now when she ran off from Shinji and the others it was always awkward for him to reach out to her. Unlike the rest of the EVA pilots who, once the war with the Angels and with SEELE ended were more than happy to try to go back to something like a normal and quiet life, Asuka still felt like she deserved the recognition that she craved while she was piloting. Once the war ended she had escaped from the hospital in Hakone that she was recovering in, literally climbing down the fire escape to sneak out despite her wounds. A few months later Asuka re-emerged in Germany fully physically healed and making a dramatic entrance in the media, quickly becoming the face of Evangelion to a world hungry for answers about what had been happening for the last year.

Initially basking in the limelight that she had so eagerly sought, after about a year of grinding daily exposure of interviews, modeling, and many public appearances Asuka decided she had enough and promptly returned to Japan, surprising Shinji and the others by moving back in with them at Misato and Kaji's new house. That following year, with Shinji and Rei living and starting high school together and all of the others living close by, was complete bliss to Shinji. Asuka was again part of his everyday family life, and they spent as much time as they could in each other's company.

Things began to change when Shinji, who in order to avoid notoriety used the name "Shinjiro Kaji" in public, was asked to appear on Japanese TV during New Year's Eve programming. Cello had become as much of his current life as EVA had before, and now cello was carrying Shinji into entirely new worlds. A single piece of his music broadcast at New Year's Eve had resulted not only in strong interest in the young prodigy from Hakone from the Japanese classical-music loving public, but it had also resulted in several invitations to better learn the art from a variety of music conservatories from around the world. Accompanied by both Misato and Asuka, Shinji went to Europe to audition at several schools in Italy, Germany, and Austria before being accepted at the Mendelssohn Conservatory in Leipzig. But when Shinji prepared to return to Japan back in March, Asuka didn't go back with him, instead slipping away from him and Misato on one late foggy evening.

At first Shinji was heartbroken and horribly worried, as Asuka sent only one message to him via text when she disappeared:

ASUKA: Just need a time out don't worry about me Baka

Quickly followed by…

ASUKA: pls don't be pathetic tks.

It wasn't the first time she had disappeared either, Shinji knew, but he was given little choice except to hope that she would again resurface. But spring flew into summer and then fall and there was barely any word from Asuka at all, other than very occasional and very short messages such as "send my stuff to my mom's house."

Now actually living in Germany and enrolled in school, Shinji wondered if and when the redhead might resurface. While she had been gone for longer periods of time, it was now that Shinji wondered if Asuka really was still interested in a relationship or if, like Misato in her younger years, she might still be damaged enough from EVA to not want to get too close to him or anyone else. _That_ he could completely understand, and it was one of the reasons why Shinji did practically everything in his power to put EVA behind him.

He took the mobile phone and went to the messaging screen, and then stared at the icon at the top of the contacts list: an image of Asuka on one of their best days, with her arms around him at the shores of Lake Ashi. He wanted that again with her, and he knew that it wouldn't happen again until he could somehow find the key to getting her to return. Slowly he begun to write a text to her.

ME: hi. I'm in Germany right now

After sending it he waited a couple of minutes for a response but saw none. Undaunted, he tried again.

ME: I arrive at Mendelssohn today. Are you nearby?

After another five minutes of anxious waiting there was still no reply, and Asuka's phone didn't indicate if she had read a text or not. Internally shinji debated on sending one more message, not wanting to trigger a tirade if she just didn't want to reply back. Anxious and seeing through the SUV windows that they were coming up on the school soon, he gave it one last shot.

ME: Asuka I finally came here ok? This is what you really wanted wasn't it? I'm not here with anyone else just me alone so pls let me know where you are thanks.

He sent the message and just as soon as he did regretted it. _Well that was dumb, this makes me look like I'm so desperate._ But this time something immediately came back.

ASUKA: Baka got it already pls don't text a freaking book I'm busy right now k

Shinji was actually elated just to get that much of a message, enough to where he had to force himself to hold back from replying _. At least she responded_ , he told himself. He felt the Mercedes park in the front of the giant school building and put his phone inside of his jacket pocket, trying to push aside thoughts of Asuka and concentrate on what he'd have to deal with once inside the conservatory. From the imposing grey marble of the building, Shinji guessed he'd have something equally imposing to face once he got inside.

Leaving the Mercedes parked on the curb and asking the driver to please wait for him until he returned, Shinji looked for and found what appeared to be the entrance of the school: a grand stonework archway with two oaken doors that rose over four meters high. One the doors was propped open and Shinji promptly went through.

Inside the interior of the school would have rated well with any art museum, the hallways were tall and lined with giant paintings and sculptures from the romantic period of German music, while the floor was covered in checkered black and white polished tiles cut in a diagonal patter that stretched out for a couple hundred meters ahead of him. Walking all along were various instructors and staff, who all appeared to be German or European, and a great deal more students of every race and ethnicity imaginable. To Shinji most of the students were well-dressed and seemed well-mannered or at least well groomed. Some of them clustered in small groups and whispered to themselves while others were walking or sitting alone along the hallway. Music was heard coming from several rooms as he walked along the hallway.

Towards the middle of the grand hall was a giant painting of Mendelssohn himself. The great composer and music prodigy had founded the school in the mid-19th Century in the hopes of discovering more talents such as himself, and despite wars and impacts this school had kept its grand doors open nearly two hundred years. Time didn't seem to alter this place and Shinji paused to look at the portrait, seeing someone who looked ordinary for his time but who was anything but. To the side of the painting Shinji saw a sign posted in German that said "Student Office." He checked his backpack to be sure he had his registration paperwork with him, and then with some trepidation pushed open the door.

The office itself was more plain and functional, like any school office anywhere in the world except for the posters of maestros on the walls. At the counter was a heavy-set middle-aged German woman of blonde hair who looked as though she had enjoyed the previous year's Oktoberfest a little too well. She was focused on paperwork on her desk when Shinji stepped up to the counter. He silently remained there for about a minute as the woman ignored him and continued with whatever she was doing.

"Um, excuse me ?" Shinji finally asked in German. The woman grunted but otherwise didn't reply.

" _Excuse_ me?" Shinji tried again. "I'm starting school here today. I needed to know where to go."

The secretary snapped her head upwards. "Administration sent you a first-day email yesterday with instructions for orientation. Did you not receive that?"

"Actually," Shinji explained, "I just flew in from Japan, and I haven't had much time to check my messages since I arrived this morning."

The woman grunted and gave Shinji a cold stare, then proceeded to grab a file box. "Must be nice to be so idle," she whispered under her breath, and then asked him. "Name?"

"Shinjiro Kaji," he told her.

After some digging she pulled out a sheet of paper and thrust it at Shinji. "See here for instructions. Your boarding is already set up."

Reading through the instructions, which were printed in both German and English, Shinji was able to figure out what was missing and then promptly excused himself from the school office, the clerk not even looking at him as he made his leave.

The paper told Shinji to check his emails to see when he'd have what the school referred to as his "Assessment Appointment." It also told him to bring his instrument. He quickly scanned the mail and found one that was posted to him just after his plane left for Japan stating the appointment time as 11:30, which was twenty minutes from right now.

 _Oh, shit._

Cursing himself for being more worried about when he'd next see Asuka instead of his first day at school, Shinji raced out the grand doorway and down the steps outside, towards the black Mercedes he had come in this morning.

* * *

Rushing back into the school halls and now carrying his cello case over his shoulder, Shinji ran to a junction of passageways to try and find out where he needed to go next. The email from the school referenced "Music Room 303" but offered no map to find the room. With only a few minutes to go Shinji didn't want to be late to whatever important event was going to happen.

Not seeing much of a map anywhere on the walls of the passageway, Shinji thought to ask one of the staff members of the school as they were walking by and waited a full minute for someone to come his direction. None were seen, although there were other students all around and many of them carried their instruments. Finally he settled on a cluster of European boys that were leaning against one wall in the hallway junction and mustered up his courage enough to try to ask where he needed to go without looking particularly stupid.

Four boys dressed in what seemed to be designer apparel were leaning against one wall and laughing in conversation when Shinji approached the group. The boys pretended not to notice the Japanese boy as they continued until Shinji, speaking in German, interrupted.

"Excuse me," he said trying make his voice heard. The boys didn't reply back but at least one of them, a taller boy with blonde hair, now focused his attention on the newcomer. Shinji tried again.

" _Excuse me_ ," he said at nearly a shout, "Do know where Music Room 303 is?"

The boys finally stopped mid-conversation as another of them, a darker-haired teenager, remarked in a lower voice "Oh, great. Another Chinese kid." The blonde boy who had seen Shinji first shushed him and then spoke to him in Chinese of all things. " _Ni hao!_ " he said. This only made Shinji more embarrassed.

"Um," he said again in German, "I'm not Chinese. I'm Japanese actually."

"Oh, so sorry," the other boy replied now in German. "Hard to tell you apart, you know."

 _Yeah, I bet_ _._ "Do you know where Room 303 is?" The four boys all looked at each other in mock trepidation, two of them shaking their heads in regret. The blonde leader smiled and spoke to him again.

"Oh, you're with Herr Mueller. Third floor." He then pointed to the stairway close by.

"Oh, okay!" Shinji elatedly told him, "thank you." The blonde boy then gave him a slight bow which Shinji wasn't sure was either mockery or some attempted form of cultural respect. Shinji then bowed just slightly himself and then ran off to the staircase with cello case in tow.

The four boys looked at him as he rushed up the stairway, one of them shaking his head and "tsk-tsk-tsk" in mock regret.

"He's up against Kommissar Mueller," the darker-haired boy said. "Too bad."

"I'd rather fight an Angel than face him," the blond boy responded as he watched Shinji run up the staircase.

Shinji made it up the staircase to the third floor and then started to search for Room 303. Fortunately the rooms were clearly labeled and it only took him a minute to see the doorway, with a closed door of polished oak etched with ornate carvings on it. A sign hung on the door that said "Audition in session. Please don't knock," in German and English.

 _Audition?_ Shinji wondered to himself in alarm. _But I already auditioned! Don't tell me they're going to make me do this again today._ He did his hardest to control his panic and sat down on a polished wood bench next to the doorway. He had been in Germany less than two hours and was already feeling more like a fish out of water than any other time of his life. _Well, almost every other time._

Shinji let himself relax a bit more on the bench as he finally let go of his cello case handle and leaned back against the wall as he pulled out his mobile phone from his coat pocket. Finally with a bit of down time since being in the SUV, Shinji paged through the rest of his messages while he waited for his turn with whatever was in the room behind him. There were perhaps thirty or so unanswered texts or emails including one from Misato reminding him to call again when he was more settled, but the majority were acquaintances from school or music who were simply wishing him well. Toji sent him a photo of himself posing next to a Colonel Sanders statue in Osaka-2, which was some sort of local landmark. He allowed himself a grin after seeing Toji ham it up for the camera.

 _Goofy, although I'll never really get Kansai humor._

There were no messages from Rei at all, Shinji noticed, and that began to worry him more. She was also arriving at her new school at the same time he was and Shinji just told himself to be patient until she was ready to reply back. Rei certainly wasn't a chatterbox and besides with the Forrestal twins also there he knew she wouldn't be alone in America.

 _After all this time it's still difficult to imagine her with an actual boyfriend_ , Shinji thought to himself, yet despite her seemingly unemotional exterior he knew that Rei's inner feelings towards her "Forri-kun" were very strong indeed.

Shinji put the matter of Rei aside for the moment and then let his thoughts go back to the one thing that was mostly on his mind since he'd arrived in Germany: Asuka. On his phone he paged to the cover image, a group shot of all of them together taken a few months back in front of his house in Hakone. _His_ house, he recognized, which had become his house when Misato and Kaji adopted him at the end of the Angel Wars and EVA and all of that. Shinji had spent over two years in that house in the time after EVA and had mostly fond memories of it.

In the photo standing together was Shinji, along with Rei on one side and Asuka on the other. Alongside them were Toji and Hikari as well as the blond-haired Patrick and Erin Forrestal, and then in the back were Mari Illustrious, and then Misato and Kaji, who were holding little Akira and Penpen in their arms for the photo. Everyone wore spring attire of garden dresses and light sweaters and smiled for the camera, even Rei managing a small smile for the photo. Despite how they had all come together and the hell that they had survived this was family to him. The photo only reminded him of how he longed for that experience again of hot afternoons and lazy days after school and being together with others.

Shinji paged from the cover photo to the gallery on his phone, finding the folder labeled "A". He had always kept his photos of Asuka separate from everything else on the phone, which was just another way to preserve his memories of her, keeping them distinct and solely his own. He opened the folder and silently skimmed through the photos, each one of them showing Asuka in various candid poses, often out of doors by Lake Ashi, or walking around Hakone or in one of the nearby amusement parks.

He continued to page through more pictures on the phone, group shots of his friends at school or at parties. Some posted photos during major holidays, including one where they were all together in formal wear. He lingered over that photo and saw Asuka wearing a stunning red satin night gown bare at the shoulders, her hair done up. She looked beautiful that night, he remembered, and he remembered how they went out to the balcony of the hotel where they were attending a party, and how they had slowly kissed in the cool mountain air. He closed his eyes and felt the warmth of her breath inside of his own lips.

 _God, it's been since March since I've kissed her_ , he realized.

Others had always remarked about Shinji and Asuka on what an unlikely couple they were, but beyond shared experiences Shinji knew the truth about them and the reality that they, like all of the Evangelion pilots, were in some way trying to make up for stolen childhoods. While other couples in their same high school class may have been working out the details of "physical exchanges" Shinji and Asuka were just as likely to be found at the arcade playing the dance games, or perhaps in children's bookstores perusing through picture books meant for children ten years younger than they. Were they enamored with these little things? Or perhaps just scared to grow up after all? Shinji couldn't decide, and in that year he spent with Asuka in Hakone, the year without EVA, he really didn't want to decide. He liked it the way it was between them. But at the same time reality was creeping in from the outside, and feelings long suppressed on the inside were beginning to come out more and more.

The last straw was the last night he had seen her, in their hotel in Leipzig on the night after Shinji had finished his interview and first audition with Mendelssohn. Their spirits were high between all three of them that night, as it had been a challenging experience for Shinji but yet he had succeeded and succeeded well, with one of the school's officials telling them privately after the interview he was likely to be confirmed. That was justification for a party, and that particular night Misato went back to her wild old days with just a little too much Jägermeister. Shinji and Asuka promptly dragged her back to her hotel room and put her to bed, thankful that little Akira didn't come along on the trip and see the shambles of his mother's youth. Once done, Shinji and Asuka returned to their own rooms for the night.

About an hour later after Shinji had showered and gone to bed the door to his hotel room opened and a few second later Asuka had snuck underneath the covers in the dark. It wasn't unusual for Shinji to share a bed with her, as she had often come in at night to sleep next to him, clutching him like an oversized teddy bear. But rarely did he ever turn around. A handful of times in the past Asuka had allowed him to do so, rewarded with a sweet, warm kiss goodnight before she left for her own room, but those times were rare. That night however she did something different.

As she slipped underneath the covers of the hotel bed Asuka put her arms around Shinji's waist and chest, clutching him tight. Shinji didn't say anything at first but did as he always did, he placed his own hands together with Asuka's. Together, they laid there like that in the bed for a long moment until Shinji noticed that she seemed so much warmer than before.

"Asuka," Shinji asked her, whispering quietly. "Are you okay?"

"What do you think?" she said in a playful voice that whispered back.

"Can I turn around?"

Almost immediately the answer came back. "Baka! Of course not!" she said, rapping him on the head. It was at this point that he realized just what Asuka did. Carefully Shinji took one hand and gently moved it towards Asuka's body. He touched what seemed like her thigh and noticed she wasn't wearing pants, which wasn't unusual for her. Then he carefully moved his hand up further and made another discovery: she wasn't wearing panties either. His had carefully caressed the bare bottom of her butt and he felt the direct warmth of her soft and supple skin against him. It took him a few seconds to pull his hand back, something that didn't go unnoticed.

"So you're feeling me up, then?" she said, still in a teasing mood.

"N-n-no!" he protested. Asuka then squeezed him a little harder and took a deep breath.

"It's okay," she said to him. "You can touch me some more if you want."

"Asuka!"

"I mean it," she said. "Anywhere you want."

Shinji's heart started racing. _Did she intend to do it with me tonight?_ Sex was not a subject that either of them had spoken about in over two years of being together, with the exception of perhaps a single letter that she had written him once, stating her intentions for him to be "her first and only." He hadn't replied to the letter, but always thought the understanding was between them that this would be "later on." _Was later on now_? Scared and gripped by his own passions, Shinji was at a loss of what to do.

"It's okay if you don't want to," she whispered in his ear. "I mean…if you're too scared."

"I'm not scared!"

"Come on," she said to him softly, "I know you dream about this. You think about it all the time."

Shinji knew that she was right: being with her, being together with her body was something that he thought a lot about, especially in quiet moments late at night. He thought about what it would be like, how it would feel, what he would do. But he also worried about what else would happen, if he'd lose a part of himself to cross over that bridge. He didn't know what to do except just lie there with her body wrapped around him and let her make the next move.

There was a heavy moment of silence in the room between them until Asuka squeezed him just a little bit harder. "Okay then," she whispered, "how about this? If you get to feel me without my clothes on, then I get to feel you without your clothes on. You don't have to turn around, if you don't want to that is. But fair is fair."

Shinji thought that fair was definitely _not_ fair in this case: it was her who had come in the bedroom without an invitation for this. _Well, that wasn't actually true_. It wasn't like he told her not to come in and slip under the bed with him. But this was a wholly unexpected turn of events.

Asuka didn't wait any longer for an answer. Moving quickly, she ran her fingers up against Shinji's sides and slipped off his t-shirt. He felt the cool night air on his chest against the intense warmth of her body on his back. Then she made her next move, as her hands moved downwards. He thought to try and hold back but he was frozen in place, and that allowed her to firmly push down on his waistband and push his shorts downward. Two seconds later he was nearly just as naked as she was.

As they laid under the covers, Asuka pressed against Shinji's back as the two of them felt each other's warm bodies. Neither of them said anything, but Shinji could hear Asuka's own breathing become deeper as she became more aroused. Not wanting to push things too hard, but at the same time feeling an uncontrollable urge to at least touch her more, Shinji again took his right hand and felt it against Asuka's leg that was wrapped around him. She silently responded by taking her hands and moving up his chest, and then with her fingertips she found his nipples and gently touched them. The feeling was very sensual for Shinji and for another few seconds he closed his eyes and let her touch him. The sensations of her playing were so enticing that he could feel a hard on strong enough to be painful.

 _Would she go there?_ He wondered. Sure enough her right hand drifted downwards across the front of his body, her fingertips gently brushing against his skin. He anticipated her next move and waited, and in another moment her fingers tracing the length of his manhood from bottom to top. It was a strange feeling having someone else's hand on that part of his body, but she was gentle and made little patterns with her fingertips as she toyed with him, and while he was still very nervous he somehow also felt comforted at the same time.

 _Maybe it is time after all._ As she gently ran her hand up and down his manhood Shinji made a decision and tried to swallow his fear as he did it. _She's want me to be direct anyway, not just wait for her do everything. Well, here goes…_

Shinji took a deep breath and started to roll over to face her. He did so suddenly and unannounced, and in the next moment he didn't know if he caught her by surprise or if she had always intended to do what she did. As he rolled over about half way, Asuka suddenly jerked away and then used her foot to kick him directly in the stomach, hard enough to push him literally out of the bed. "Ouch!" he called out as he fell to the floor, his shorts still stuck around his ankles. "Asuka!" Shinji scrambled to get off the carpeted floor of the hotel room and make it back to the bed, but as he climbed up he noticed a pink and red blur dash through the hotel room door and slam it shut behind her. She had left the room. Unable to chase after her, Shinji just fell back into the bed, feeling terrible that he had somehow messed up what had been the most physically intimate moment he had ever had with Asuka.

The next morning he thought to at least apologize to her, and woke up early to go to her room. He stood in the hotel hallway and knocked several times but there was no answer, and she didn't respond to him calling her name. He then used his phone to try and reach her but again there was no answer by call or text, or email or anything else. Her phone was shut off. After a few minutes of frantically trying to contact her from his own room there was a knock on the door. "Shinji," Misato called to him, "can I come in?" He went to the doorway to open the door. "Misato," he said to her in a panic, "Asuka's gone!"

"I know," Misato said in a much calmer demeanor. "I got a message from her earlier this morning." Shinji was now even more distressed, as Asuka didn't make any attempt at communication with him at all. "What…where did she go?" Misato just shrugged. "Back to her parents' house, probably," she told him.

"But shouldn't we go after her?" The older girl just shook her head. "Come on, you know her. She gets this way and needs to go and run off for a bit." Misato then cocked her head and asked Shinji in an innocent voice. "So, um, anything happen with you two last night?"

As Shinji was about to recall his answer, his mind was snapped back on the present in the hallway of the Mendelsohn School, his head turned as he watched the doorway open and a blonde-haired teenaged girl bolted out, her violin case in hand. She said nothing but just hurried past him and down the hallway. As Shinji watched her rush by him, he saw her face and noticed that he was flushed red, tears flowing from her eyes. Something very unpleasant had happened in the audition room.

"Herr Kaji!" came a stern-sounding man's voice from the open doorway and Shinji knew there wasn't any avoiding the crucible. With a resigned sigh he sat up from the bench and lifted his cello case, and then proceeded to enter Room 303, shutting the wooden door behind him.

* * *

 _SPD - Dear readers, thank you for checking into our latest story, a nice little fanfic centered on Shinji Ikari and taking place about three years after the events of the original TV series. Play to Remember won't be a long story, it's somewhere about 20,000 words, but hopefully it will still be a memorable and touching one._

 _Some of you readers are familiar with my other works in The Blue Rose saga and Play to Remember is part of that same alternative universe, although it takes place nearly a year and a half after the chapter "Hanami." If you're not familiar with the earlier Blue Rose stories and are reading "Play to Remember" for the first time, rest assured that it's not entirely necessary to read the earlier Blue Rose books to get this story. In fact, I've rather deliberately written it as a stand-alone work. While I'd certainly encourage new readers to go and read the Blue Rose stories, it's not actually all that necessary to enjoy this one._

 _At the time I finished The Awakening I had no plans for future EVA fanfics of any kind, instead I started to focus on my original fiction and outlining the series of books that I've been working on for some time. However the work on that project has been slow and showed that some development of the storyline is still needed, so in order to keep my skills sharp I've decided to write some smaller pieces for EVA, all still set within the Blue Rose storyline I came up with earlier. Play to Remember is one of these stories. There will be at least one or two others written this year, probably with a focus either on our Rei and/or Erin Forrestal, but shorter works and not epics._

 _As always reader feedback is encouraged. This story is only 4-5 chapters long, so things should be moving pretty fast after this chapter. Stay tuned, as I'll update frequently._


	2. The Crucible

The audition room interior was relatively Spartan compared to the rest of the Mendelssohn school, with white walls on all sizes and a black-and-white tiled floor. There was a single painting on one wall that Shinji knew to be J.S. Bach, the 17th Century composer who was considered by most to be the father of classical music. There was a single chair and a music stand in the middle room, and another row of chairs on the opposite side facing it, but only one chair was occupied. Seated in the middle of the row was a middle-aged German man of slim build and closely cropped hair, with large earlobes and steel blue eyes over a serious mouth. The man icily gazed at Shinji as he made his way to the center chair.

"Herr Kaji, please sit down," said the instructor in German as he motioned to the center chair. Shinji did as he was told, opening up his cello case as he sat down and removed his coat. Shinji stood up his cello and immediately plucked out his rosin from the case, unsure of what was to happen next.

"You are a new student here, Herr Kaji, yes?" the man asked him and Shinji nodded in reply. He looked inside of a manila folder with some papers, scanning the cover document. "From Japan."

"Yes, sir," Shinji replied in German.

"I am Frederick Mueller, master of strings at this school. Do you know why you're here?"

"I'm here to learn cello, sir."

Instructor Mueller became exasperated with that response. "No, young man, why are you here _today_?"

Shinji was somewhat at a loss for an explanation. "Um, I'm not sure." He told the instructor. "I already auditioned back in March to get in there, so I'm not sure why I have to do it again."

"The initial audition was for acceptance into the academy," answered Mueller, "this audition is to determine your placement within the program." Shinji actually felt relieved at the man's answer as he continued. "We will evaluate your placement and your eligibility to be in the player's orchestra or chamber group based on today's result. Not everyone will be satisfied with their standing."

 _That would explain that girl's reaction, probably._ "Yes, sir."

The instructor winced a little, looking at Shinji. "Do you have any difficulty understanding me?"

"Um, I learned German in Japan and I've been here a few times before," Shinji replied. "I understand what you're saying."

"Then hopefully you also understand my meanings as well," retorted the instructor, who now crossed his legs and folded his arms in anticipation. "You will play one piece and one you are comfortable with. You will start when I tell you and stop when I tell you, is that clear?"

"Yes, sir."

"Please tune and then you may begin."

Shinji was now firmly seated in the center seat, carefully tightening up his strings and visually checking his instrument for any possible damage from the trip. Satisfied he was ready to go, he then took his bow and immediately plunged into the music piece he was most comfortable playing, the same one he played at his first audition at Mendelssohn: _Bach Cello Suite #1._

Starting at the beginning Shinji worked his way through the first few stanzas of the piece, trying to find his comfort within his instrument. After about two minutes into the prelude he was able to relax enough to close his eyes and move through the notes from strong familiarity. The room melted away in the harmony of the music as he played, and he found his confidence back again as he glided through the music, letting himself forget where he was and how much trouble the morning seemed. Unfortunately it didn't last.

"HALT!"

Shinji stopped at about two minutes into the piece, shocked back into the reality of the moment _. This is really beginning to get on my nerves_. "Was...was there a problem?"

Mueller crossed his arms in impatience. "Could you _please_ not play Bach Number One?" he asked in an irritated voice.

"But you said you wanted a piece that I was comfortable with?"

"I hear that fucking squabble twenty times a day during audition periods," the instructor snorted, hands massaging his temples as if to alleviate a growing headache. "Every-single-one who comes in here thinks that they can impress me with their rendition of Number One."

"But I like the piece…" Shinji defended.

"It's not the only thing you can play, is it? Something else, please." Mueller then starred icily at Shinji as his mind raced on what piece to move to next.

 _Shit. Should I try something from Mendelssohn's Cello suite? No, that's too obvious. Maybe more basic like Pacabel? No, he'll consider that an insult, everyone plays that. What do I do?_ Shinji gave it as much mental energy as he could, and for a brief moment imagined himself back in the entry plug, apertures in his grip and LCL in his lungs and his heart racing like there was no tomorrow, which he suddenly felt like it was. _Mustn't run away, mustn't run away, can't run away…_

 _Got it!_ Shinji twisted the bow in his hands and closed his eyes tightly, letting himself feel the pace first before starting up. Then he took a deep breath and again went to the cello. The first few notes of _Camille's The Swan_ came from his instrument with what he hoped was a smoothness of butter despite the pieces' rather expressive sadness.

This wasn't the first time Shinji had performed the piece for an audience as he also had played it earlier in the year during one of Rei's ballet recitals, ideal as _The Swan_ had been adapted for ballet not long after its composition. He thanked the stars that he had memorized it then, so that he could bring it up now when he needed it. Again he closed his eyes to concentrate on the piece, letting his mind go blank and just trying to focus on the notes as he hit them. Shinji found a groove and let himself relax for a bit as he climbed the scales of the piece with his bow, taking a deep breath and finally allowing himself a moment to be comfortable as he played.

"STOP!" Instructor Mueller grating voice had forced him off in mid-note, ending his play in an ungratifying screech. _This guy is really making me angry_ _…_ _._

There was an awkward moment of silence as Shinji got up from the chair. "Was there a problem?"

"It's dreary," Mueller told him. "The last thing I want to hear is some pathetic squelch about a dying bird." Shinji thought to speak up again but the instructor cut him off. "No need to pick a third piece, I doubt any selection would be sufficient."

By this point Shinji's temper was actually beginning to flare up. Getting into Mendelssohn was the result of over a year's worth of work, traveling thousands of miles from Japan to audition in multiple schools in Europe, and going through the personal hell of losing Asuka right after his initial audition. He had thought he could at least move into something better once he travelled here again, despite leaving behind nearly all that he had knew, and now he was dealing with what seemed like the last bastion of the Third Reich in this recital room on this dreary day not more than a couple of hours after just getting off his flight. "Why do you even want me to play?" Shinji spat out in a nearly disrespectful and very irritated tone.

Mueller seemed unmoved and certainly unintimidated. "Why do _you_ want to play?" he shot back from his chair and motioning with his hand to his surroundings. "Why bother with all of this if this is the sort of garbage you put out?"

"It's not garbage!"

"Oh, I'm sure _you_ think you play well. And I'm also sure that your companions and instructors over there where you're from also think you're some sort of expressive genius." Shinji again moved to reply but Mueller continued. "Well, you're not. You're going through the motions and trying to replicate what you hear or what you read on the sheet in front of you. That's not orchestration, that's just like being a music box or a player piano spitting out pre-programmed notes."

"Well, what am I supposed to do?"

"Why do you _play_ , boy?"

"What?"

"Why do you play cello? Why do you do it?"

"I like to," Shinji answered simply.

"That's nonsense," was Mueller's reply. Shinji's emotions were now nearly out of control. "No, it's not! I like to play, that's just it. What's wrong with that?"

"People _like_ to do things out of pure animal instinct. They _like_ to drink beer. They _like_ to eat bread. They _like_ to fuck whores. Do _you_ like to fuck whores, boy?" Shinji was startled and blushed heavily, without answering.

 _How could I possibly answer this anyway?_

"What goes into playing cello well enough to live off of it?" Mueller challenged him. "This isn't something you just pick up a bow and a piece of carved wood and try to have a go at it. You have to put yourself through hell to get good at this. You give up dating and relationships, you give up eating well, you give up partying with your friends, you give up normal education to be proficient. And for what? Most students who graduate from here earn less than a train conductor, fighting like hungry dogs to get at rarely open seats in small orchestras. At best you'll be lucky enough to solo and maybe sell a few MP3 files, enough to make the rent on your townhouse. Yet despite all of that they go through the education and process it takes to make the music you and everyone else takes for granted. Tell me, can you do all of that if you just _like_ to play? Does that seem reasonable to you?"

Shinji was startled and nearly frozen, as the instructor had neatly ripped a hole in his own personal AT Field. Mueller, now seeing his target silently trembling, continued on.

"Tell me something else, boy," he addressed Shinji while he stood up and held a file in his hand. "When did you start seriously learning cello?"

"Um, I was about seven," Shinji recalled.

"Were you ever in a youth orchestra?"

"Yes. Hakone Middle School #1, and then Hakone International High School. Also I was in the prefecture and all-Japan youth programs. I soloed on New Year's Eve…"

"I know all of that," interjected Mueller. "You were in your last year of middle school when you first entered orchestra groups, just two years ago" he continued. "Why not earlier?"

"Um, I…I just didn't have an opportunity!"

"I wondered, so I did some looking. You were at Ube Middle School #1, in Yamaguchi prefecture, prior to transferring out in your second year, correct?"

Shinji nodded. "There is an orchestra class at that school," interrogated Mueller. "Why weren't you in it?" The boy's mind fell back very, very far in his memory to a time he had forced himself to forget: his childhood prior to coming to Tokyo-3. "I don't know," he shrugged, "I think I wasn't good enough for it yet."

"Then you went to Tokyo-3 for your second year, transferring in. From what I know about Japanese schools that must be difficult but still for someone who seems as talented as you are I'm surprised you didn't join the school orchestra. Why was that?"

 _What is this, you're going to pick apart my whole life?_ "I was busy that year!"

"Doing what, exactly?"

 _How about saving the world._ "I had other extracurricular programs that didn't allow me to take cello," replied Shinji at practically a shout.

"So cello wasn't important to you, then?"

"Yes! I mean, no! I mean…there was…there was a lot going on that year." Mueller was silent for a long moment as Shinji prayed he didn't pry further.

"I'm sure," he said more softly. He instead started to walk around the classroom a bit more, still speaking to Shinji as he moved around.

"How did you come here today?" Mueller asked Shinji. "By what means of transport?"

"I flew into Leipzig airport and then I got a shuttle to the school."

"What airline did you fly in on?"

Shinji bristled at the interrogation but now knew what the school master was really getting at and tried to be evasive. "Um, it was a charter flight."

"On a Gulfstream aircraft with military markings, yes?"

"How did you know that?" Shinji blurted out, and almost immediately knew he had been found out.

"It's not often I see a student arrive at school with multiple armed bodyguards. You're not the son of some billionaire or politician, you don't carry yourself at all like most teenagers who have come into money. You're important enough to marshal all of this protection and attention, and in the end all you want to do is play cello here at this place over nine thousand kilometers away because you _like_ to," Mueller ended in a mocking tone. Shinji was silent and more than just a little embarrassed.

"I've read Colonel Katsuragi's books," Mueller continued. "It must have been difficult living in Tokyo-3 during that time."

Shinji straightened up. "It was," he said softly.

"And afterwards,' Mueller said while walking behind Shinji. "You transferred into a new school and suddenly became your prefecture's top student cello player practically overnight. Clearly you found motivation from somewhere." Shinji didn't answer him. "I beg the question again. _Why_ do you play?"

The boy paused as he tried to conjure up an intelligent answer in his mind. He really just liked to play, it always seemed that simple to him, but was there another reason? What was the school master getting at? Cornered and tired, Shinji gave him answer without thinking much more about it. "I play…I play to forget things," he told the older man. "Sometimes I just want to escape, and cello lets me do that."

"So you're running away?"

"Yes! I mean No! Um, I mean…"

Mueller waived him off, not wanting to hear more. "No need to regurgitate further," he told Shinji. Then the instructor walked back to his chair and sat down, writing something inside of the folder that Shinji couldn't see. He had a look of seeming disappointment on his face. "Mister Kaji, if that is in fact your actual name, I'm going to be very direct with you. I think that only fair, given as you've made so much effort to make it here on your part, yes?"

"Yes, sir."

"I won't lie to you and say that you have _no_ potential. I get rich kids from wealthy families to want me to make silk out of a sow's ear with their ne'er do well children. You are certainly better than them. If however, you want to meet your possibly unrealized potential you cannot simply work harder, is that understood?" Shinji was silent as Mueller continued. "It matters not how much you practice or concentrate, strenuous effort alone will not help you. Isolating yourself in a world of notes and scales and repetition will certainly not help you. Is that also understood?" The boy nodded in acknowledgement.

"If you want to play as well as you can play, if you want to not just spill out repeated notes but instead give gifts from that polished piece of Italian oak in your hands, you cannot do this because you _like_ it. You cannot do this because you have nothing else, either. Music is an expression of the soul, and for music to have any meaning or anything to grasp, there must be substance to it, something tangible to hold onto."

"No, boy, if you want to play well, and as well as you can, to enter the firmament of the masters as it were, you cannot play to forget. You cannot escape into the music and bring nothing into it from yourself. You must play to _remember_. "

"Play to remember?"

"Yes. The self is made up of your experiences, your memories as it were. It's your memories that make you 'you.' Without that you're just a vacuum to transpose on by others. But if there's anything of substance inside of you it can only come out by realizing it, and that can't be done by trying to get away from it. Only by drawing from your memories and making that your strength can you, and by extension your music be fully realized."

"I see," was the only thing Shinji could say.

"Anything else is a waste," concluded the master. "Now go."

* * *

Shinji left the music room dragging his cello case as he wondered down the staircase and out of doors. The rain had let up somewhat, although the dark clouds certainly kept the mood of the day gloomy. Wondering through the open courtyard of the school, Shinji's mind kept moving back to the harrowing second audition he had been forced to go through. While he had certainly faced challenges since picking up a cello again over two years ago, this was admittedly the harshest test he had encountered since. Would they continue to let him study at Mendelssohn? Or perhaps he'd be here but just busted down to the basic levels of the schools coursework. It was Shinji's hope that if at Mendelssohn he'd at least have a good shot at making the student orchestra, which was world renowned. Now he wondered if he was even fit to clean their music stands.

It wasn't just how the instructor had treated him during the exam but also what he said that troubled Shinji greatly. _Play to remember? Are you kidding? I do cello to get away from all of that._

 _How can I play to remember? Man, I just want to forget._ Shinji looked around him and in the distance mixed in among the students and staff he saw a tall, black-suited German with dark sunglasses on either hallway of the courtyard, slowly keeping pace with him as he drifted in the grassy center of the court. Yet another reminder of what he was once, three years ago. He felt an itch at the center of his chest and reached inside of his sweater and shirt to scratch, feeling the scar that lined the center where surgeons had torn a hole open in him when his heart had stopped. _Fifth Angel_.

He closed his eyes in anguish, feeling the tension in his hands as memories of gripping the actuators of his EVA tightly as he made that killer shot. It was said that you couldn't remember actual pain, but you could never forget fear and that he knew. _Third, and Fourth, and Fifth, and Jet Alone, and then Sixth…and on and on until the end._

Scenes came to his mind about what had happened after the last angels, when he and Unit 01 had been strung up like a puppet by those white flying monsters. The pierces in his hands from the spears. The shaking in his body from not knowing what would happen next. The horror of feeling his very soul being opened up and how his body was melting inside. Shinji's breath was suddenly short, his through felt tight. He clutched his collar as if he was running out of air. He could feel the LCL again violently bubbling against his face. _Oh, God, not now. Not a flashback now. Please, just let me run away this once!_

Eventually after finding a bench in the school courtyard and sitting down for nearly an hour to recover himself, Shinji got up again and made his way to the dormitory hall. Like the main quad of the Mendelssohn school that was behind it, the dormitory was about two hundred years old and built of brick and stone, constructed of several stories of student bedrooms above and a common dining room and communal areas below. He walked through the front door still carrying his cello and looked around to try and orient himself.

His phone buzzed inside of his pocket and Shinji quickly grabbed it with his free hand. The sender was a number he didn't recognize but from the content of the message he knew it was someone from amongst his security detail.

SEC44AF1: SIR YOUR ROOM HAS BEEN CHECKED AND CLEARED AND ACCESS CONTROL SET UP. YOUR LUGGAGE IS ALL THERE.

Shinji swiftly texted a reply.

ME: THANKS VERY MUCH! I APPREACIATE ALL OF THE HELP

SEC44AF1: THERE ARE THREE OF US AVAILABLE SHOULD YOU NEED ANYTHING. OTHERWISE WE'RE GIVEN ORDERS BY THE DIRECTOR TO STAY CLEAR OF YOUR WAY WHILE YOU'RE HERE. IF THERE'S ANY EMERGENCY JUST PRESS "9" ON YOUR MOBILE PHONE OR PRESS YOUR BELT TRANSPONDER AND WE RESPOND ASAP. ALSO YOUR PHONE IS YOUR ROOM KEY, THE ENTRY CODE IS THE ONE YOU SET UP BEFORE YOU LEFT JAPAN.

ME: NO WORRIES, I'LL BE ALRIGHT. THANK YOU AGAIN.

SEC44AF1: THANK YOU AND GOOD LUCK WITH YOUR STUDIES.

Shinji dropped the phone back into his pocket and then searched for the elevators.

Located in the center of the first floor, the dorm's elevators were quite old, rickety steel cages that rose up in metal chambers like some sort of film noir of the 1930s. It was just a little scary to ride them at first, Shinji thought, but they seemed well maintained after he took one lift to go upwards. He went to the ninth floor, the top floor of the dorm.

Shinji had requested, and received a single dorm suite which was a narrow set of both a downstairs and upstairs portions. The downstairs had an efficiency kitchen and small living area, while the upstairs had an equally small bedroom with attached bathroom. From the floor plan the suite looked compact and not unlike his room at the Hakone house, although this time he'd finally be actually living without any family or roommates and if he had one blessing about his new arrangement it was that: actual privacy.

Upon reaching the ninth floor Shinji then walked down the hall to where his room was: #905. There was nothing on the door but a number, and while there was an old-style brass doorknob Shinji didn't try it, instead he reached inside of his pocket again for his mobile phone and pulled it out. After launching a key app he dialed in the private security code that he set up before he left home: 01-12-04. After entering the code the doorknob made a metal clicking sound and then Shinji promptly turned it open.

Once past the doorway Shinji looked around the small place and saw small towers of shipping boxes, most of which were emblazoned with the logo of Yamato freight; a black mother cat carefully clutching a black kitten by her mouth. The lights inside were dim but most noticeable was the smell: the suite smelled of cooking. He heard noises from the kitchen and quickly unshouldered his cello case onto the floor, wondering if anyone had already gotten inside. "Hello?" he called out but there was no reply.

 _Someone's in here, maybe I could notify security. Then again, they just secured this place just now. Was one of them in the kitchen? They're guards, not servants but who knows_. "Hello?" Shinji called out again and slowly made his way to the kitchen, sluffing off his shoes by the doorway before entering the rest of the suite's bottom floor.

He carefully walked in between islands of shipping crates, taking a quick glance at the suite's wooden floor as he did so. The room looked about two centuries old, with oak paneling and ornate carvings at the ceiling moldings above him, created back in an age when these sort of accommodations were hand-made. He got closer to the kitchen which was behind one wall, keeping his phone in his hand with his fingertip on the "9" dial. "Hello? Is anyone there?"

Turning the corner Shinji saw the kitchen. On the efficiency stove there was a cooking pot that was boiling with steam rising from it. On the other side was a small oven with something inside that smelled like pastry, and standing in between them, her face in a confident expression, was Asuka.

* * *

SPD - Here's the second chapter. Posted the first chapter earlier but FFN has issues with not giving you alerts when you just change chapter content, so I decided to go with this one ahead of schedule. Please enjoy as there's more to come.


	3. I'll Take You

"A-A-Asuka!" Shinji exclaimed as he dropped his phone back in his coat pocket. There she stood in front of him, a ladle in her right hand. She wore a blue kitchen apron but underneath it was a black and grey sweater top, worn with a short black leather skirt and ornately patterned black pantyhose. Her red hair was worn tied up with a pair of scrunchies on either side, and she only had a bit of eye shadow and lipstick on. She smirked at Shinji as he stood in front of her.

"What are you doing here?" was all he could ask.

"What do you think?" she smartly replied as she looked over to check on the stove. "You just moved in, I'm warming the place up for you."

Shinji didn't know if he was elated or angry. He was happy, ecstatic even to just see Asuka again but then he thought why didn't she tell him she'd be here in reply all of his efforts before? He had been worried sick about her for months and now here she was in front of him like nothing had happened. Shinji took a few steps towards her until she was just within reach. She didn't react, but instead just fussed with the noodles inside of the pot, where she turned off the stove gas. "How did you get in here?" he asked her.

"Baka! You're so predictable. You used my birthday as your entry code to the door." Shinji sighed as he realized how easy that must have been to figure out, hoping that no one else did. "The guards didn't stop you from getting in?"

"You put me on the access list for your room, did you forget?" she said, more than a little miffed that she might not actually be welcome. Shinji had to admit it was true. "Why didn't you at least let me know you were here?"

She pivoted around. "What? You don't like surprises?"

Shinji moved even closer to her, close enough to feel her breath. "I was worried about you. You just took off that night the last time we were here without saying anything!"

"Not true," Asuka defended. "I told Misato I was leaving for a while."

"Why?"

She sighed and turned to face him. "Don't tell me after so many years together you still don't know me that well."

"I know it's not the first time you've done something like this but at least say something after you bolt off."

Asuka pulled out her hair from the scrunchies and shook it until it fell all around her shoulders. "Oh, like you didn't see that coming. Besides, if you were coming to live here I had important stuff to do." Shinji could feel his temper flaring a little bit more now. "Such as what?"

"Well, I had this modeling job here in Leipzig and I couldn't pass that up," she said whimsically. Despite seeing Shinji's skeptical expression on his face she continued, "and then I got enrolled to Cordon Bleu so I can do stuff like this," just as she said it the oven's bell rang and Asuka hopped over to the toaster oven on the counter, putting on hot gloves and carefully pulling out the tray inside. Inside was a baked strudel which Shinji admitted to himself smelt rather good, with an apple and cinnamon flavored aroma that filled the kitchen.

"You _actually_ went to cooking school?"

"Yeah," she curtly replied and before Shinji could say anything else she shoved a forkful of strudel into his mouth. He chewed on the pastry, his eyebrows lifting in surprise that it tasted as good as it did as Asuka was previously not that greatly talented at cooking. "Not bad, huh?" she told him and Shinji, his mouth still chewing, nodded in agreement. "I'm just as good as you are in the kitchen now."

"Well, I wouldn't go that far," he commented after swallowing down the pastry.

Ignoring the critique Asuka continued her story. "While I was doing that, I started working on my violin a bit. You know I play too, don't you?"

"I knew that, but I thought you gave that up? I mean, before EVA."

The redhead continued on. "Do you know how bad it sounds when you're re-learning violin? I mean, you've got this screech that you're making for hours on end trying to get good at it again. I'm not going to subject all of you to having to go through that for months on end, am I?"

"Wait, you picked up violin again?" Shinji asked. "Why?"

"So I could come here, of course! I'm not just gonna get into this school on my good looks."

Shinji was now thoroughly confused. "Wait, you're _enrolled_ in Mendelssohn?! When did you audition for that?"

"The way it goes is this: once I knew you'd be there I figured I needed to get back to speed, so I called my agent here in Germany and asked if the school ever did any advertising. At first they said they weren't interested, but then when my agent told them a former and kind-of famous Evangelion pilot was interesting in attending they sort of bent the rules a bit."

" _Bent_ the rules?"

"Sort of. Basically we made a deal: I'd do an endorsement of the school along with a photo and video shoot of me, you know, playing here and attending classes and stuff, and in return they'd give me a late audition after I explained that I was pretty good on violin before EVA but I needed to sort of get back in shape first. No guarantees, mind you. If I blew the tryout it wouldn't matter how much free advertising I'd give them."

Asuka reached into her handbag that was lying on the kitchen counter, and handed Shinji a brochure. It was a marketing advertisement for the Mendelssohn school promoting their expanded program. On the cover of it was Asuka, dressed like a fairly typical student in a grey school sweater and short pleated plaid skirt, holding a violin and looking so much like a bright-eyed attentive pupil. "Looks pretty convincing, doesn't it?"

"So you're now the face of Mendelssohn school," Shinji mused.

"Beats some two hundred year old fart. They got that photo shoot for free, and then I got to try out for the school when I was actually ready."

"And when was that?"

"This morning. I was freaking in the middle of it when you had to text me at the worse possible moment. Typical."

"So…did you get in?"

Asuka just smiled at him. "What do you think?"

Shinji leaned back on the counter, right up until this moment he had absolutely no idea this was Asuka's plan all along. "And?"

"And?! Here I am. Oh, and my room's across the hall." She took a big bite out of the pastry and chewed slowly as a shocked Shinji thought everything through. "Surprise," she said calmly, with a small smile on her face.

The boy wasn't as happy as Asuka hoped he'd be. He had spent the last six months conversely worried and upset about Asuka's sudden departure and state of incommunicado, and then now here she was smugly touting herself right in front of him. He had really suffered these last few months, Shinji told himself.

"Why do you have to keep doing stuff like this all of the time," he complained to her. "Do you have any idea how much I was worried about you? If you want to attend school here why didn't you tell me before?"

She looked at him with a more serious expression now. "Because you'll make too much of a big deal about it, and besides I need to catch up to you. I didn't want to make it a race."

"It wouldn't have been a race between us, I would have done everything I could to help," he protested. "Besides, how do you think I feel? You just barge into my room that night and…"

"Barge in?! Like I wasn't invited?"

"Of course you were invited, but…"

"But what, exactly?" she replied back sharply. " _You_ turned around that night. What does _that_ mean?"

"It means I wasn't expecting to get kicked in the stomach and then have you take off for six months!" he said to her in a more angry tone. "I thought we were serious."

Asuka didn't say anything to reply at first, but instead just silently took off her apron and let it drop to the kitchen floor. "I did too. So I had to get ready."

"Ready for what, exactly?"

She took a plate of the strudel and held it in her hand along with a fork in the other. "I don't want to be just a kid anymore," she told him. "Do you? Or is this all just playtime for you?"

Shinji's expression softened as she moved closer. "I don't mind that so much, but…but," he struggled a bit to try and say the right words in her presence, as even now after so much time spent with Asuka it was often hard for him to really talk openly. "…I'm still crazy about you. I must be to go through all of this."

Asuka took a bite out of the strudel. "Why did you want to go to Mendelssohn?"

"It's a good school," Shinji said. "Maybe the best in the world for cello."

"But you wanted to be here, too, in Germany, right? Where I'm from. Close to home."

"It was a nice bonus."

"It was more than that," she needled him with the fork. "You left Japan for this, for me. You even went and left the First. I honestly didn't expect you'd ever have the guts to do that."

"Rei's got her own life now," Shinji told her. "But you're right, it wasn't easy leaving her behind. Or Misato, or everyone else."

"But you're still here in the end."

"Yeah," he told her. "All of this new stuff scared the shit out of me but I still wanted it," Shinji tried to explain to her. "And I still wanted you in that world."

She looked at him directly with her big blue eyes, narrowly trying to see inside of him. "Tell me the truth," Asuka interrogated him. "Did you date any other girls while I was away?"

"No," he said honestly.

"Not even that hussy?"

"Mari just likes to tease," he told her. "Sometimes I can't tell if she's being serious or not. But no, not her either."

"So, truthfully, no one's had you then? Not even Misato?"

Shinji then partially lied, not wanting to let Asuka know what Misato had propositioned to Shinji in the darker past. "No."

"You swear?"

"I swear on my mom's…um, core. Just like you."

Asuka contemplated everything as she stood in front of him, her face in rock-solid seriousness. They were both silent for a long while as she just looked him and Shinji stared back. She came to a decision, and hoped Shinji didn't notice how nervously hard she swallowed. Using the fork she took a big slice of the strudel and again shoved it in his mouth. As Shinji started to chew on the warm piece she dropped the plate and fork to the counter with a clang and reached behind him, and in a rushed voice she said "then I'll take you!" and immediately put her lips against his while he was still chewing, bring him closer to her.

The two of them put her arms around each other, and both kissed and chewed the pastry together. Shinji needed to be very careful to not chew the wrong part but as the same time the warmth of her gentle lips put together with the sweetness of the desert was intoxicatingly sensual. They stood there in the little kitchen slowly finishing the pastry together and then after it was done they remained locked by the lips, kissing each other harder as eyes closed tightly and liberated tongues found each other and twirled together, licking off the sweet remnants of the strudel from their lips. She broke off the kiss and embraced him, holding Shinji as tightly as she could against her and taking deep breaths.

He tightened his grip around her, determined to never let his little red bird ever get away again. Asuka then stepped up on her toes and whispered in Shinji's ear. "Go take a shower," she told him in a whisper. "You _smell."_

* * *

It took Shinji to make it up to the top of the stairs to realize just exactly what Asuka was getting at in the kitchen. _So this is it, isn't it? This is her way to telling me she's ready._

 _Am I?_

The upstairs of the dorm suite had only a very small bedroom with an attached bath, a lot smaller than the room he had in Misato's house. The lights were still turned off and there was nothing in the room except for some blankets and sheets on the bed: everything else was still packed in boxes downstairs. Shinji didn't turn on the room lights just yet, but instead went to the bathroom. While it was small too it was also recently remodeled with brand-new porcelain white tiles on the floor and walls, and what looked like a basic but newly installed sink and shower. There were about four bath towels handing from two racks otherwise there was nothing else there.

Shinji closed his eyes for a moment to try and concentrate, noticing that his heart was beating a lot faster since climbing the stairs. This was what he really wanted, wasn't it? Him and Asuka together forever. Everything seemed so sure and easy back in Japan, but now he was here and she was here, and no one else was here: they were truly alone together for perhaps the first time in their lives. Any remaining dams holding up the waters of nature felt like they were starting to break apart.

 _It's natural, I guess. It's more than just natural actually, this is pretty much what I dream of nearly every night. This doesn't even feel real right now._ He started to take off his sweater and shirt, then his pants. Then after stripping everything else off he set his eyeglasses on the sink cabinet and then went to the shower.

After a lengthy and careful session in the shower unit Shinji made his way to the bed in the darkness of the bedroom, leaving the light on inside the bath. He had on only a towel wrapped around his waist and could feel the cold air of the room chill against his skin, giving him more incentive to hurry to the bed.

Quietly he slipped inside the sheets and covers, lay down on the bed and waited. All of his emotions were raging inside: fear but also desire. He wanted to see her, what she was like underneath. He wanted to touch the skin on her body again and feel it against his own. It was so much for his head that he gave up trying to organize his thoughts. He was on autopilot from this point forward.

About two minutes after he got into bed the bedroom door opened and Asuka darted inside. She said nothing to him but instead made a quick beeline to the bathroom and slammed the door behind her. Behind the bathroom door the shower turned on and seemed to go on forever, enough to where steam escaped from the door crack below and came into the bedroom. After what seemed like twenty minutes or more the shower ended, and Shinji could only hear muffled sounds from the bathroom. She was preparing herself, he knew, but he had no idea what to expect. His heart was racing now, and everything was tensed up and erect, especially _that_ part.

The bathroom door burst open and Asuka rushed out into the cold air of the bedroom. She had a towel wrapped around her waist, and another on her head. She went straight to the bed and slipped inside.

Once they were reunited they said nothing to each other at first, but Shinji reached for her hand and she gave it to him and lying together they stared at the unfamiliar ceiling above. Was this an end or a beginning, Shinji asked himself. He had not been so scared since his first time in the EVA's entry plug.

"If you don't want this just tell me," she said to him finally. "I'll understand."

"I do," he answered.

"Then there's no going back to the way things were, not if we do this."

"I know."

"Are you scared?"

"No."

"Liar."

"Like you're not scared either, right?"

"No," she said in a softer tone. "But you could have gotten me a lot sooner if you really wanted to."

"But I love you," he told her, surprising himself with his frankness. "I just want this to be right."

"What do you mean?"

"Just…we weren't old enough until now. Even now is kind of early."

Asuka shrugged, "when other girls were worrying about if they were popular enough or if they could get some boy in middle school to look at them, I was risking my life fighting monsters in a giant war machine. I think I've put up with more already than nearly anyone else does in an entire lifetime so I'm entitled to a little indulgence. Don't you think so? Or are you content to be a kid all of your life?"

Shinji turned around in bed to face Asuka. She was already turned on her side facing him, the towel from her head was now removed and her red hair was loose all around her head. His eyes were adjusting to the darkness and he could see her in much better focus now. Without thinking his hand went to her body, feeling the towel wrapped around her and the warmth of her through it. Her hand went to his and their eyes met each other.

"Everyone thinks I'm some sort of hero but they just don't know what it's really like," he told her. "I'm not like what they think I am."

"What does that bother you at all," she asked him.

"There are days that I just want to put all of that behind and just be me," Shinji confessed to her.

Asuka adjusted herself to be closer to Shinji, close enough for the fragrance of her hair to be noticed by him as she snuggled. "Is there Asuka without EVA?" she asked him. "Can you separate us apart?"

"Yes," he told her, but she shook her head. "It's not so simple, is it? Would you have met me if it weren't for EVA? Even if we did, would the connection between us be the same?" Shinji couldn't deny it was true.

"But we're not part of EVA anymore, are we?"

"EVA's a part of us, and always will be. At some point I just gave up trying to deal with it." She looked at him, her hand moving towards his bare chest, tracing his scar with her fingertip. "How can you run away from EVA and still run towards me? Hell, the First is literally EVA embodied, but you can't say she's not part of your life, can you?"

"I just don't…" Shinji struggled to speak out, "I just don't want every day to be that way, the way it was before. Today I had another panic episode, here, even though I came here to get away from all of that. If I can't get away from it here what can I do?"

"If you can't swim out, then just dive in," Asuka said to him softly. "It's okay, the water's fine."

"You mean LCL."

She laughed at his joke and even Shinji smiled a bit. "See, even you can find something funny about it," Asuka told him. "Not so bad, is it?"

He didn't reply but nodded, then adjusted himself so that he was kneeling above her, with Asuka below him on the bed. Her bath towel was still wrapped around her waist.

"Besides," she said to him softly, nearly at a whisper. "Maybe they didn't tell you but when you get done with EVA you get a reward."

"What's that?"

"You get to make love to the most beautiful girl in the world." Asuka then unwrapped the towel that covered her body, allowing Shinji to see all of her.

His eyes finally adjusted to the dark, Shinji spent a full minute looking at the beauty of Asuka's wonderfully naked body in front of him. She was beautiful, he knew, and while he beauty wasn't just skin deep what he was seeing now certainly was the stuff of his dreams. The girl had a petite, slim figure with breasts that had firmed nicely up since he first knew her, with her red hair was spread all around, and long legs that he wanted wrapped around him. Uninhibited, she let him look at everything, even her most intimate place, and Shinji noticed that she had even shaved off her hair down there. _She really isn't covering up anything at all._ He imagined himself doing what he needed to do next, and tried to figure out what to do first despite his nervousness.

"Are you ready to launch," she asked him softly, her hand again gently brushing against his chest. "My AT Field is down. I'm completely defenseless."

 _I can't just wait for her to pull me in, I gotta want to do this._ He could feel himself sweat, and his manhood was pumped so hard it hurt.

 _I mustn't run away, I mustn't run away, I can't run away…I really don't want to run away._

 _And this time, maybe I don't have to._

He took a deep breath and out of habit pushed the air out of his lungs, usually the one thing Eva pilots did before the LCL came in the entry plug. But this time he followed with another breath, and then clumsily started to get his towel off. He then closed his eyes and dove right in.

* * *

A couple of hours later they were together underneath the blankets of the bed. The air of the old apartment was still cold but they cuddled together for warmth, as Asuka rested tightly against Shinji's body.

The first time was awkward and misguided but then the second time was much more fulfilling, each of them releasing into the other and bringing the other into them. By the end of it all of the fear and nervousness had melted away completely, and there they now were: side by side, her hand clasped in his.

They slept together for a while then Shinji's eyes opened to the new situation. Asuka stirred a little, not quite awake but not quite asleep either. She finally turned to him and gave him a small smile, and they gently kissed each other. She put her head back on his chest, her hand still clasped in his. "So, how was it?" she asked him in a soft voice.

"Weird."

"Weird? It's the most natural thing there is. Other than eating and pooping I suppose." Shinji smiled back and leaned further in the bed as Asuka shifted to lay on top of him while he pulled over the blanket to keep them both shielded from the cold air.

"You seemed to really enjoy it," she told him. "So was that like all of those dreams you had about me?"

"Yes, and no."

"No?!"

"Well, it felt a lot better." She smiled again and brushed her hand against his nipples. "I should hope so."

"You liked it too," Shinji told her. Asuka didn't reply but just nodded and sighed deeply, and then lay her head against him. He gently caressed her soft skin with his other hand as she snuggled alongside.

There was a long moment before Shinji spoke up again, making a sudden realization. "Oh, shit," he told her. "I didn't wear a-"

Asuka playfully knocked him on the head. "Baka, it's okay this time. I used some foam down there so it should be alright. You'll need to get some for later, though. I don't want to get a stupid kid from this."

Shinji adjusted his position on the bed and brought his arm around Asuka, holding her tightly against him. "Are we the first ones? You know, to do this?"

Asuka looked at him incredulously. "You're kidding? You _don't know_?"

"Know what?" He then thought for a moment. "Not Rei!"

"Of course not! Not her, not yet anyway. Ironically she's the one who's so desperate for a baby but can't have one. You know who."

"Toji and Hikari," Shinji confirmed. "Toji didn't tell you," she asked him. "You're his best friend and all."

"No, I mean we don't talk about stuff like that. When?"

"For at least a year," she said as she looked up at him. "Some time around when high school started for you guys."

"Geez, I didn't even know."

"It just shows how wrapped up you are in your little world," Asuka commented as she got up and kneeled on the bed, letting herself out of the sheets and blankets for a moment. Shinji could see her in all of her beautiful nakedness. "Don't you think it's funny that all of us pilots are hooked up in the end with other pilots? I mean, I could have any guy I want but here we are. And the First has her stupid American, but he's also a pilot. Don't you think that's just kind of weird?"

Shinji looked up from the bed at her. "Not really. Maybe it's just that you can't really know someone unless you've been where they've been. I can't imagine having someone who's not one of us around like this."

"So you're only attracted to EVA pilots, then?"

"Just one," he told her, and then leaned out of the bed to kiss her. The kiss was deeper this time, now infused with memories of how they kissed while their bodies were intertwined. It lasted for a minute as they silently kissed on the bed while Asuka moved her hands over his body. They broke off but she gently pushed him back down on the bed. Shinji was now out of the sheets, his full body visible to Asuka and his manhood was saluting her in the cold air as she climbed on top of him.

"I think you're ready for another one, hmm?" she purred and he just smiled. She slid her hands over him and into his own hands, and then leaned down against him to kiss him again, her body now right on top of his. They kissed passionately and then leaned against him again, holding herself tightly alongside. "I guess we're stuck together, aren't we?" she said in a much less playful tone, but one full of recognition.

Shinji nodded, and then went right back to making love to her.

* * *

 _SPD - And so we have the...climax...to our story. Bad joke. I know._

 _It's tricky writing something like this, as you want to strike a balance between conveying emotion and providing some sense of mystery. Push too hard and you end up being too graphic, go too soft and you lose the chance to convey what are very intimate moments between two beloved characters. It's definitely challenging to write scenes like these tastefully and with some respect for your characters._

 _I had always wanted to do a straight-up Shinji/Asuka romance, and I sort of did this within the Blue Rose series even though they're not the main focus. The thing is that there's already so much SxA out there in FanFics that I really had to consider a while what the best setting was for them. I like the idea that they're out on their own, far from home in Shinji's case, and the music academy just seemed like a fertile environment for ideas that play to their strengths and weaknesses._

 _We still have some ways to go, so please stay tuned. Will update within a week or so._


	4. Epiphany

By the time Shinji woke up again it was past six o'clock at night. The light outside the windows had faded away and the rain had also dissipated. It was quiet outside, without all of the bustle of the earlier day.

Leaving a sleeping Asuka inside of the bed covers, Shinji got out and looked for anything to wear. He had brought just a backpack with him on the flight, enough for a spare change of clothes and the bare basics for the bath, and he promptly snuck back down the staircase wearing only his bath towel and eye glasses until he found his bag. He grabbed a t-shirt, underwear, and pants and threw them on without thinking much, and it wasn't until he wondered back into the kitchen that he saw his mobile phone illuminated by the message indicator that was flashing.

 _Rei._ Shinji jumped towards the kitchen counter and grabbed the phone. On the screen was a series of missed phone calls and one voice mail message, he promptly turned it on and listened. The call had come in at 1:21 PM, which was approximately the same time that he and Asuka were taking their towels off.

The message was short, just Rei's own monotone and whisper-like voice: "Call me." He checked the call history and saw that she had made about two other calls before, and he had missed them all.

 _Damn!_

Urgently he checked the global clock on his phone, it was 6:17pm in Germany, but 12:17 pm in Massachusetts, where Rei was supposed to be. He immediately brought up Rei's phone number and called it. She picked up on the first ring.

"Rei!"

" _Onii-chan_ ," she said calmly. Rei had been calling Shinji "big brother" since they had moved in together in Misato and Kaji's house in Hakone, and it was something that Shinji had always liked to her from her.

"I'm so sorry I missed your calls!"

"I'm okay," Rei said with just a small hint of emotion in her voice. "All settled in."

"How is New England?"

"It's pretty. The trees are now turning their fall colors."

"Do you have your new place now?"

"I sent the location to your email," she told him. "Foch-sensei has a guest loft outside of his house, I moved in yesterday."

"So everything's okay with school?"

Rei grunted in the affirmative. "Classes being today, then I'm needed at the laboratory for testing." Shinji already knew that meant Rei would be a test subject for the scientists at the New Institute who wanted to study her unique physiology, the price for her gaining a scholarship there. He felt bad for that she'd be subject to some of the same treatment she had from his father and Akagi-sensei years before, but they had also promised her that they could possibly help her with her fertility and that had driven her to finally leave Japan.

"And how is Patrick?" Shinji asked.

"Forri-kun is good, he helped me move in. He and Forri-chan have an apartment one kilometer away."

"That's great!"

"Onii-chan, how is the new school?"

"Um, well, it's been interesting. A lot of things happened today," he replied to her in what was clearly an understatement. "It's going to be really challenging but I guess it will work out okay." Shinji paused for a bit. He wanted to talk to her more but was unsure how to begin. He just dove in. "Ayanami…I mean Rei," he said, having to correct himself, "are you happy?"

For a few seconds there wasn't an answer on the other side. Rei then said simply "I don't think about it."

"What, really?"

"I don't think about it," she repeated. "Compared to when my earlier self first met you my condition is substantially improved."

"Well, you have an actual life now," Shinji told her. "I mean back then you were totally different than you are now." Rei didn't reply but Shinji continued. "I'm sorry, I suppose you literally were a different person when I first met you."

"I am different yet I am the same."

"But things are better for you now, right?"

"Yes."

"But are you happy? Really?" There was a long pause on the phone line as Rei apparently thought about the question.

"Yes," she finally said.

"I'm glad, I really am. To be honest I always worry about you."

"Why?"

"I guess I always want to be sure you're getting every good thing you could be, that you're not lonely or deprived, or you know, sort of drifting." After saying this he worried that he might have said too much but Rei replied back quickly enough.

"Not everything is the way that I would like," she said.

"Such as what?"

"I'd like it if we could still live together."

"I guess we have different dreams," Shinji told her. "And…and unfortunately we have to be in different places to find them. But I'm thankful that we got to live together, under the same roof. Maybe it was only for a couple of years but I loved every minute of it."

"Me too, Onii-chan."

"You know, now that we're not in the same house anymore. You can go back to calling me Shinji, if you like. I don't mind." Rei paused for a while before answering. "No. I prefer Onii-chan. Is that still okay?"

"Yes, it's just fine."

There was another long pause between the two of them, and Rei spoke first this time. "Onii-chan?"

"Yes?"

"Are you alright?"

"Yes, I guess so."

"Did you see the Second?"

"Yes. She's here with me now, at my place." There was another long pause, and Shinji wondered if Rei was able to put together what had happened not that long ago between him and Asuka. Feeling a little nervous, Shinji spoke up again, not even being sure why he spoke out to Rei like this. "I guess we're together now. I mean really this time."

"That's okay," she replied, her voice in a slightly more quiet tone. "You are very suitable for each other."

"Sometimes I'm not always so sure."

"No," she confided. "You've always been suitable."

"But now you've got someone too, don't you?"

"Yes."

"Are you happy with him?"

"Yes, I am. Sometime I think that I may be a burden to him, because I am me and because there is no one else like me. But he is very patient and warm, and I am happy that he is."

"Do you think it's because he's a pilot also that you're together?"

"I am not sure. I do think he can understand me better because of this, and that is good. That is true for all of us."

"I think so too, strangely enough. Well, you probably have things to do, so please take care." Rei didn't say anything but just slightly grunted an acknowledgement over the phone. "It can be hard living away from your home country, so…if you need anything, or just want to talk please just call me."

"Yes."

"Okay, good night Rei."

" _Oyasumi._ "

Shinji hung up the phone and breathed out a long sigh. Rei seemed to be doing okay after her first full day of being an exchange student in America, he thought. To Shinji it always felt very good to talk to her, even if she just listened to him blurting out things on his mind.

 _But I guess we're still connected to each other after all of that. I'm still "Big Brother" to her, while she has her own love and I have mine._ _Before I always thought of Rei and Asuka as either/or, but that's not actually true. It's both in their own way, and actually that really makes me happy that it can be that way._

He put down the phone on the counter again and went to the window of the apartment. Pulling back the curtain he could see the city lights illuminate the streets of Leipzig and it looked charming, in an old fashioned way. For the first time since he arrived, actually for the first time in a very long time, Shinji felt he could really relax. A few more minutes were spent looking out the window and examining the view from the dorm, then he finally turned back inside.

 _Well, where do I go from here_? Asuka hadn't come back down from upstairs, and Shinji figured she was still sleeping peacefully in his bed naked and satisfied. _We finally did cross that bridge. Somehow Rei knew it too, from just my voice_. Not wanting to really think about anything further, he still found himself charged with energy and needed to do something, anything to spend it.

Shinji's cello case was standing on the floor where he had left it after first entering the apartment, and Shinji then carefully opened it and pulled it out. He then looked for and found a stool in the apartment. Given that Mendelssohn was a music academy it somehow made sense that playing stools were in the student apartments, and the one Shinji found was polished walnut wood and looked old but sturdy. He sat down and laid the cello against his lap, and started to carefully check the piece to make sure it was in tune. Once satisfied he moved to the case to get his bow and then sat down again, cello in hand.

 _What should I play?_ He first considered going to one of the standards, such as the Bach suites or Dvorak, but something nagged him inside instead. _Mendelssohn? Camille? Hmm. I really can't decide_. Without thinking much about it he just took his bow and started playing a melody that came to him.

After a few strands he stopped, realizing that he didn't actually recognize the melody as from someone else. _I guess that's my own piece of music_ , he mused. Then he went back and started again on the same melody, only now going slower. _What is this supposed to be?_

The melody was smooth and sweet, using a high note but also somewhat flat. He could tone it down to a very soft noise, almost like soft footprints. _Feels like Rei._

 _Wait a minute._

He stopped playing for a moment and started to concentrate. _When was the first memory I had of Rei. I was on the EVA cage. She was in a hospital gurney, wrapped in bandages. It was sad seeing her like that, a wounded bird who showed no apparent emotion, but her screams were real enough when she was thrown off the gurney a minute later. I remember holding her hand, the first time. I remember not knowing what I felt but that it was strong, stronger than anything I'd ever felt before. Yet…that wasn't the first time, was it?_

 _I saw her once before, just before that first angel showed up at that train station, if that was her. Just for a split second._ Without thinking Shinji drew the bow and squeezed out a single note.

 _Then it was by the EVA, and then the hospital, and then at school I saw her every day. She rarely spoke, so unemotional, yet even then you could tell there was something she was holding onto inside._ As his memories rushed through he took the first melody and added to it. The notes came out deliberately flat, with a sad tone to them.

 _Then there was a breakthrough. We spoke to each other on that platform in the moonlight before the Fifth Angel. "Don't worry, I'll protect you," she said, and I got so scared she was going to die. I remember after I shot that Angel, how I rushed down the mountain and got her entry plug out of Unit 00. I remember how I rushed out and ran to the plug on the ground, how I used every big of strength I had to open the door. I remember how hot it was when it sprang open, like a furnace. I remember seeing her on the throne and thinking she was dead and how horrible it was. And I remember how happy I was to see her open her eyes and look at me._ All the while Shinji was reviewing his thoughts he kept playing, churning out seemingly random notes that sparked the highs and lows of his feelings. _I remember…_

 _"_ _Ikari-kun, why are you crying?"_

 _"_ _I'm happy you're still alive!"_

 _"…_ _I…I don't know how to react at times like this."_

 _"_ _You know, you could just smile."_

 _And I remember that smile, the first time she smiled at me. I remember taking her hand and helping her out of the seat, and holding onto her. I remember how I felt, and how beautiful she was, even when she was wounded and bloody like that_. He played furiously, pouring all of his emotions into the piece. _I loved you then, but I just didn't know how. You were the same way with me._ His playing continued and what started out as a random spread of notes turned into a melody with both high and low combined. It's _complex, major and minor themes together_ , Shinji analyzed as he continued churning out the piece. _She has a dual nature, heaven and earth, and it comes together like that._

 _I think about Rei and music comes out. Sometimes she talks about the "song" she hears whenever she goes someplace, but actually Rei herself is a song. Is that true of everyone?_

He changed gears, and let his mind go to a week after rescuing Rei from the wrecked entry plug. He thought about a sunny day with cool ocean breezes, the first day he saw her. _Yellow dress, yellow hat, blue lace around her neck, red shoes, long legs with white, soft skin showing. White panties too, just a glimpse as the wind caught her dress_. Shinji let the bow touch the cello again, and again a melody came, a much different melody that the first one that was active and energetic.

 _She was skeptical at first, but somehow there was also a spark_. _We were together that day. Even then she let me into her world._

 _"_ _It's a program error?"_

 _"_ _It's thought noise. I told you not to disturb me!"_

 _"_ _What do you mean?"_

 _"_ _You're thinking in Japanese, yes? If you must think, do it in German."_

 _"_ _Okay, I'll try…Strudel, Bratwurst…"_

 _"_ _Never mind! We'll start over, switch language to Japanese!"_

 _Thinking back on that now it was hilarious how we're trying to find a way to operate EVA together, but we did something that day no one ever expected: we piloted and fought together._ He kept at the play, not knowing where he'd end up as he churned out music from the cello. The piece was highly spirited and uplifting but then he hit a snag. Asuka, like Rei, had her own dual nature, and it wasn't pretty.

High notes shifted to low ones and brightness gave way to shadow. He knew this kind of feeling himself, where he'd keep a more bright personality outside that masked the pain he felt within, and Asuka was just like that. His memories again came flooding in, that one night he couldn't forget. The first night he slept with her, close enough to actually try to kiss her in her sleep. What surprised him then was the tears that came from her at night, and why.

 _"_ _Mama….why did you have to die?"_

Later on he learned exactly why, and that only made things worse.

Dark chords came out the cello, mirroring the depths of despair that he knew she felt inside. It was such a contrast to the outer personality she showed when he first met her. Both strains were within her, and just like Rei she too had a dual nature, but of sunlight and shadow. Could they be put together?

Working with the bow he tried different sets of notes, trying to expand the sound to match the spread between both high and low and give the music richness and fullness. He dove into the memories again. When was the moment when she had both highs and lows together? With EVA? Of course but when was the best time? In a second it came to him like a lightning bolt and his pace with the bow quickened.

He remembered the music in his ears, the same exact pulse and beats were in hers. He remembered listening to that same spread of music for days on end, trying to get it right, trying to get it in unison. He listened to that freaking tune so many times it took him forever to get it out of his head but now it all came back. Their matched steps together, tightly coordinated, and then a minute and two seconds later they had done it . They had, together in unison, defeated the Seventh Angel, codenamed Israfel, an old Hebrew name given to the Angel of Music. And that was exactly what he needed to know. He furiously went at the cello, giving up a stream of notes that went into a crescendo that ended in G. And then he stopped.

Still sitting on the stool, cello in one hand and bow in the other, Shinji panted heavily. He could feel the sweat coming out of this forehead. _What did I just do?_ He played back the music in his mind. _I just sort of improvised this but I kind of like how it came out. Too bad I didn't?..._

From behind him he could hear clapping and he quickly turned around. Standing at the edge of the stairway was Asuka, wearing just a button-downed shirt that was one of Shinji's own. She was smiling as she applauded and Shinji gave her a weak and tired smile himself, exhausted from the exertions of the day.

"Incredible," she told him. "To think that I helped inspire that."

"Was it good?" Shinji asked, honestly not knowing the answer. The redhead just smiled and nodded. Gratified that she liked the improvised piece, Shinji felt elated for a moment then quickly came back down to earth in a gloom.

His sudden despair was noticed by Asuka. "What? What's wrong _now_?"

"I just realized that I didn't do anything to record that," Shinji told her, "I just played instead. I can't even remember what it all was." He turned to Asuka, expecting another "baka" moment from her but instead her smile just widened. She lifted up her hand and showed the smartphone in her palm, and then keyed the screen button to playback. The recorded sounds of Shinji's impromptu session emanated from the phone's speakers, and he was very, very pleasantly surprised as a wide smile came to him as well.

Asuka just put her hand on her hips and in a smart-toned voice told him "I guess you just can't live without me, can you?"

* * *

 _SPD - We're almost at the end here, and we see a snapshot of Shinji and Rei's relationship as it eventually evolves. If you're read the Blue Rose, of course you've seen the progression between Shinji and Rei, but I had always thought they make rather cute siblings._

 _We have one chapter to go in this short story, so stay tuned!_


	5. The Reason I Play Is

**_Nine months later…_**

The concert hall of Mendelssohn Academy was modest by European standards, just a smaller auditorium provided for the students there to exhibit their work of the past school year for their classmates, teachers, family and a few others, perhaps seating a thousand people at best. It was however, rather ornate for such an intimate setting, with large oil paintings of the schools original benefactors as well as elaborate decorative moldings on the walls and ceilings.

This night, at the end of the school year, the auditorium was slowly being filled by those invited to attend. Dressed in formal wear, the audience filtered into the seats as final preparations were being made on stage for the orchestra and the sound system underwent a final check. One of the attendees was a middle-aged German woman wearing a long, silk red dress together with a white wrap. Her platinum hair was done up high and well, and she had a dignified air about herself. As she entered the auditorium foray he spotted a familiar face standing before the aisles.

"Herr Mueller!" she greeted the gentleman.

Like most of the men in the concert hall Mueller wore a black tuxedo, his being of simple but elegant design. "Ah, Frau Krauss," he returned the greeting. "Good evening." The two of them shook hands politely and walked together down the aisle of the auditorium, making conversation as they did so.

"How are things in the foundation office?"

"Very well. Thanks to our media campaign with Fraulein Langley there's a considerable growth of interest in the school. I think it did well to have a fresh face associated with it, certainly she's more comely than two-hundred year-old masters."

"Certainly…"

"The endowment showed a substantial growth as well, and as you know that always makes the board happy. How are things on the academic front? Will we have anything interesting to hear tonight?"

Mueller smiled just a bit. "I think you might be pleasantly surprised."

"Good. Student orchestras are always a bit rough under the edges but occasionally roses are known to grow among the thorns." The two of them found seats about five rows from the front and promptly sat down.

It took another ten minutes for the rest of the audience to filter in, then the lights dimmed and spotlights were pointed towards the stage. As the light darkened on one side of the auditorium and grew on the other, the crowd quieted in expectation. Precisely at 7:15, an older gentlemen walked on stage wearing a black tuxedo with long tails, his silver hair flowing loosely backward. Conductor and academy headmaster Siegfried von Warner was met with a loud applause as he took the stage. With German precision he smartly snapped to attention and faced the audience. He spoke into a wireless microphone that was worn as a barely visible headset.

"Ladies and Gentlemen, let the Mendelssohn Academy introduce this year's student spring concert performance." The was further applause from the audience as from the sides of the stage came flowing ninety-six young adults, each wearing black tuxedos or black evening gowns. Most carried their instruments in their hands apart from the few that were players of larger things such as drums that were already laid out on stage. The audience clapped harder as the students filed in and took their seats. The lights dimmed slightly on stage as each student settled in, unpacking or preparing their instrument while music stands that were digitally linked displayed sheets of music on LCD tablets in front of them.

As the students of the orchestra prepared for the night, von Warner continued speaking to the audience. "As I'm sure most of you are aware, at the end of each academic year the students are offered to play a composition from one of their own. We here at Mendelssohn take great pride in fostering our student's abilities not only in becoming proficient masters at playing the work of the greats who originally founded this academy, but also in becoming such masters themselves through creativity intertwined with discipline."

Von Warner made a quick glance behind him, at the single seat that was at the focused middle of the stage, a seat that was filled by a young man with glasses and long brown hair tied in a ponytail, holding his cello at the ready. "This year we're pleased to present an original composition from one of our students, entitled ' _Angels of Music Adagio #1 for Cello_ , with orchestra accompaniment.'"

From their seats Frau Krauss whispered into Master Mueller's ear. "Is that the Japanese boy I've heard so much about?" Mueller simply nodded, his focus on his student that was now at center stage.

After the audience finished applauding and the sound of the hall died down, von Warner turned around and stepped up to the conductor's stand, where there was a single thin podium. He had no music display, the old headmaster being experienced enough to not allow it to be a distraction to him. Instead he scanned the orchestra and saw the eyes of all of his students focused on him. All except one, as that student was concentrating on his music and where it would begin to flow.

With a wave of his baton, von Warner started the concert. The first notes came from the back, as the players of two harps began a gentle set of notes that eerily sounded like footsteps. _Da-daa-da-dum-da-da-daaa….Da-daa-da-dum-da-da-daaa…_

Strings then joined in followed by the wind instruments, an accompaniment that set the stage for the soloist on cello. As he listened to the music behind him Shinji counted the beats in his head and readied his bow, and at the precise moment took over as the orchestra stopped and the only sound was the oak richness of the cello. In his mind he concentrated on the image he wanted: a girl in bandages, her eyes red like a lone wolf, silent yet powerful. Notes came out of his cello in harmony as he pushed forward.

The composition had three parts, each about seven minutes long. The first was named "Angel of the Moon," and was a soft and subtle piece but with both major and minor themes, reflecting the dual nature of its inspiration. Shinji's cello would play for part of the segment then the orchestra would join in to give the music texture and backdrop. As he played he thought of her, and of the moments good and bad he experienced in those first few weeks together.

The second part was entitled "Angel of the Sun," and unlike the first segment this portion was more lively and active. The beat of the notes grew faster, the music suddenly rose in liveliness, even playfulness. Shinji took the lead and the orchestra followed him as he played with a strong confidence. His mind remained focused, thinking about those times together when they fought and played, and talked, and how both challenging yet liberating it was. He could feel the warmth from her just by playing and thinking about her beauty in his mind. But there were dark paths hidden in shadow, and the segment made a gradual drop in tone, bottoming out in low notes as trumpets and horns sounded from the orchestra while base drums beat ominously. He struggled to concentrate, as the most difficult part was to come.

Shinji let his mind blank everything else out and just look at one thing. In the wreckage of the city, he remembered the first time that he saw him. Sitting on the remains of a marble statue and humming the bars of Beethoven's Ninth, from the fourth movement, the theme in the original composer's own words, of Universal Brotherhood. Shinji wasn't afraid to steal it either, and a few notes from the Ninth found its way into his own piece, but then it veered off into a new direction.

 _"_ _Singing brings joy and revitalizes the human soul…Don't you agree…Shinji Ikari?"_

"Angel of the Stars" started out soft like the first segment, but warmed up considerably like the second albeit at a slower pace. Sweetly notes came out of Shinji's cello but he didn't notice. He couldn't. The memories, long covered up, were coming up to the fore of his mind again.

 _"_ _You know pain is something that man must endure in his heart. And since the heart feels pain so easily some believe life is pain. You are delicate like glass, that is, your heart is."_

And then later on…

 _"_ _I think that I was born just to meet you."_

He remembered the boy's face, the inviting eyes. Red like Rei's but warmer and softer. He remembered the openness he felt, the complete lack of fear in getting to know someone new, and how that winter night they both looked out among the stars above Tokyo-3. And how it all went to complete and total hell just a few hours later.

 _"_ _Final Safety System Penetrated! They've reached Heaven's Gate!"_

The music shifted dramatically, the notes from Shinji's cello now came out frantically, almost in a frenzy. The feeling of live and death on the line. The fear of total destruction, and despair of knowing the end was near. You couldn't remember pain but you could remember fear, and he remembered just how much fear was even possible in a human. But then, something happened.

 _"_ _In truth, death may be the only absolute freedom there is."_

"I don't understand what you are talking about, Kaoru."

 _"This is my wish: please destroy me. Otherwise you will be destroyed…You need the future, it is that you live for."_

 _"_ _Thank you, Shinji. My life was meaningful, because of you."_

He felt the grip in his hands. He heard the music play in his head, the crescendo crash over him as all pieces came together at the end. The orchestra then suddenly stopped and all that remained was the sound of one cello, sorrowfully giving out music in sadness. In his memories, he felt the grip tighten, the boy grasped in his hands. He felt the life come out of the body.

 _Why did I do it? Why? Even now I can't figure out why. If I could have just said something or done something to save him. Why?_

The sadness came forward and the auditorium was silent as a graveyard save for the single voice of the angel that came from the stage.

 _Yet as the body dies the spirit became free. He needed me to do that for him…and I needed him to set me free too._

At the very end there was an uplift in the tone of the music, rising from sorrow to life again. Flowing with energy the notes carried upwards and into the air above. The harmony came forward and the music echoed throughout the concert hall.

 _Everyone finds love in the end…_

And then he finished. Exhausted.

There was silence as Shinji caught his breath, wiping the sweat from his forehead. He felt himself trembling all over his body. There was something in his eyes and on his cheeks and used his handkerchief to wipe it, realizing that as he was playing he had also been crying. He looked up and saw the audience was just as stunned as he was. Then slowly, one person clapped followed by another, and then another, and then many, many more joined in. Then one man stood up, and then another, and then a few others, and in the space of the next few seconds the entire concert audience was on its feet, clapping and even cheering what they had just heard.

Shinji turned around to look behind him. Nearly every student in the orchestra was also on their feet and clapping hard for him. The conductor, professor von Warner, also clapped and smiled at him. Shinji looked at the student group for one person in particular and found her. Seated up front with the string section, and wearing the same black evening gowns as the other ladies in the orchestra was Asuka, her blue eyes shone brightly in pride at him as she applauded enthusiastically. Tired but happy and very relieved, Shinji gave her a faint smile back and she gently blew him a kiss as the others continued to applaud.

In the audience Frau Krauss clapped along with everyone else, speaking to master Mueller as she did so. "Amazing! You could really see he put his whole heart and mind into it!"

Mueller simply smiled and applauded along with the others.

The woman asked the master next to him, "How does he play like that?"

The old master just turned to her and said "He played to remember."

THE END

* * *

 _SPD - When I completed this story and had it initially read by beta readers, the general feedback was that it was good but felt just a bit short, like I could have taken the concept of Shinji and Asuka at the music school and ran off with it for another dozen or so chapters. It was tempting to do that actually, and I did in earlier drafts of this story have other characters that were scattered about, mostly to lay a foundation of any future work. In the end though I really thought the conclusion needed to be short and sharp, and avoid distractions otherwise it would feel like so many manga or anime stories that exist well beyond their initial reach. Shinji finds his rhythm in the end, and grows up in the way that many of us who are fans of EVA sort of wished he could._

 _Some of the readers who've come here are no doubt a little perplexed by the background setting, which is the Blue Rose's alternative universe for EVA. I try not to give away too much here if you're new to Blue Rose, but certainly now that you've finished this piece and if you liked what you read then by all means know that there's more stories out there like this for you to enjoy. If you're a SxA fan in general there's a fair amount of that in Blue Rose as well, although Rei is the centerpiece of those stories._

 _If you like this story (or not) please feel free to leave me feedback it's always welcome both here and at my Facebook page. While eventually I'll have my own original works out there in the meantime I'm still working on EVA stories and would very much like to hear from readers. Thanks very much for everyone who took time to read this and I do hope you're happy with the story._

 _Special Thanks to Ghost Man for beta review and edits, and to Horsit for general guidance for the whole project._

 _Odd notes and tidbits: 1) Yes, that last quote "everyone finds love in the end" was taken from Hikaru Utada's song "Sakura Nagashi", that I could not resist. 2) There is a Mendelssohn Conservatory in Leipzig, it's actual name is the University of Music and Theatre Leipzig. It's one of several music schools in Leipzig, which is sort of a nexus of classical music in Germany. 3) The Colonel Sanders "curse" in Osaka is an urban legend, where a Col. Sanders statue was thrown in the Dotonbori river after the Hanshin Tigers scored an upset victory in the Japan Baseball championship in 1985. The curse is that Osaka will not win another baseball championship until the KFC statue is completely recovered from the river. 4) There's nothing in GAINAX's background info for Shinji Ikari to suggest he lived with his uncle in Yamaguchi prefecture before coming to Tokyo-3. Ube is however Hideki Anno's hometown so I figured it worked. -spd_


End file.
